TASK

TASK, Book I.

At Olney he contracted a close friendship with the reverend Mr Newton, then minister there, and since rector of St Mary Woolnoth, London, whose religious opinions were in unison with his own. When Mr Newton published his volume of Hymns, called "The Olney Collection," it was enriched with some compositions from the pen of Cowper, distinguished by the letter C. They bear internal evidence of a cultivated understanding, and an original genius. His time was now wholly dedicated to that literary leisure, in which the mind, left to its own operations, follows up that line of pursuit which is the most congenial to its taste, and the most adapted to its powers. In his garden, in his library, and in his daily walks, he seems to have disciplined his muse to the picturesque and vivid habits of description, which will always distinguish Cowper among our national poets. No writer, with the exception of Thomson, seems to have studied nature with more diligence, and to have copied her with more fidelity. An advantage which he has gained over other men, by his disdaining to study her "through the spectacles of books," as Dryden calls it; and by his pursuing her through her haunts, and watching her in all her attitudes, with the eye of a philosopher as well as of a poet. As Mr Cowper had no relish for public concerns, it was not singular that he should have neglected the study of the law, on which he had entered. That knowledge of active life, which is so requisite for the legal profession, would hardly be acquired on the banks of the Ouse, and in silent contemplations on the beauties of nature. In this retreat, he exchanged for the society and converse of the muses, the ambition and tumult of a forensic occupation; dedicating his mind to the cultivation of poetry, and storing it with those images which he derived from the inexhaustible treasury of a rich and varied scenery, in a most beautiful and romantic country.—The first volume of his poems, which was published by Mr Newton in 1787, consists of

Cowper. of various pieces, on various subjects. It seems, that he had been assiduous in cultivating a turn for grave and argumentative versification, on moral and ethical topics. Of this kind is The Table Talk, and several other pieces in the collection. He who objects to these poems as containing too great a neglect of harmony in the arrangement of his words, and use of expressions too prosaic, will condemn him on principles of criticism which are by no means just, if the object and style of the subject be considered. Horace apologized for the style of his own fatires, which are, strictly speaking, only ethical and moral discourses, by observing, that those topics required the pedestrian and familiar diction, and a form of expression, not carried to the heights of poetry. But if the reader will forego the delight of smooth versification, and recollect that poetry does not altogether consist in even and polished metre, he will remark in these productions, no ordinary depth of thinking and of judgment, upon the most important objects of human intercourse; and he will be occasionally struck with lines, not unworthy of Dryden for their strength and dignity. His lighter poems are well known. Of these, the verses supposed to be written by Alex. Selkirk, on the island of Juan Fernandez, are in the most popular estimation. There is great originality in the following stanza.

I am out of humanity's reach;
I must finish my journey alone;
Never hear the sweet music of speech;
I start at the sound of my own."

It would be absurd to give one general character of the pieces, that were published in this volume: yet, this is true concerning Mr Cowper's productions; that in all the varieties of his style, there may still be discerned the likeness and impression of the same mind; the same unaffected modesty, which always rejects unseasonable ambitions and ornaments of language; the same easy vigour; the same serene and cheerful hope, derived from a steady and unshaken faith in the dogmas of Christianity. Mr Cowper, perhaps, does not derive praise from the choice and elegance of his words; but he has the higher praise of having chosen them without affectation. He appears to have used them as he found them; neither introducing fallacious refinements nor adhering to obsolete barbarisms. He understood the whole science of numbers, and he has practised their different kinds with considerable happiness; and, if his verses do not flow so softly as the delicacy of a modern ear requires, that roughness, which is objected to in his poetry, is his choice, not his defect. But this sort of critics, who admire only what is exquisitely polished, like Cuy's pictures, these lovers of "gentleness without spews," ought to take into their estimate, that vast effusion of thought which is so abundantly poured over the writings of Cowper, without which human discourse is only an idle combination of sounds and syllables. The favourable reception which this volume experienced, produced another of superior merit. His principal performance was undoubtedly "The Task," a poem. The occasion that gave birth to it was trivial. A lady had requested him to write a piece in blank verse, and gave him for its subject a thing next to her, viz. the sofa. This he expanded into one of the finest moral poems our language has pro-

duced. It is written in blank verse as desired; and though in that respect it resembles Milton's, it is nevertheless original and highly characteristic. It is not too stately for familiar description, or too depressed for sublime and elevated imagery. If it has any fault, it is that of being too much laden with idiomatic expression; a fault which the author, in the rapidity with which his ideas and his utterance seem to have flowed, very naturally incurred. In this poem, his fancy ran with the most excursive freedom. The poet enlarges upon his topics, and confirms his argument by every variety of illustration. He never however dwells upon them too long, and leaves off in such a manner, that it seems it was in his power to have said more. The arguments of the poem are various. The works of nature, the associations with which they exhibit themselves, the designs of Providence, and the passions of men. Of one advantage, the writer has amply availed himself. The work not being rigidly confined to any precise subject, he has indulged himself in all the laxity and freedom of a miscellaneous poem. Yet he has still adhered so faithfully to the general laws of congruity, that whether he inspires the softer affections into his reader, or delights him with keen and playful raillery, or discourses on the ordinary manners of human nature, or holds up the bright pictures of religious consolation to his mind, he adopts, at pleasure, a diction just and appropriate, equal in elevation to the sacred effusions of pious rapture, and sufficiently easy and familiar for descriptions of domestic life; skilful alike in soaring without effort, and descending without meanness. He who desires to put into the hands of youth a poem, which not destitute of poetic embellishment, is free from all matter of a licentious tendency, will find in the Task a book adapted to his purpose. It would be absurd and extravagant austerity to condemn those poetical productions in which love constitutes the leading feature. That passion has in every age been the concernment of life, the theme of the poet, the plot of the stage. Yet there is a kind of amorous sensibility, bordering on morbid enthusiasm, which the youthful mind too often imbibes from the glowing sentiments of the poets. Their genius describes, in the most splendid colours, the operations of a passion which requires rebuke rather than incentive, and lends to the most grovelling sensuality, the enchantments of a rich and creative imagination. But in the Task of Cowper, there is no licentiousness of description. All is grave, majestic, and moral. A vein of sober thinking pervades every page, and, in finished poetry, describes the insufficiency and vanity of human pursuits. Not that he is always severe. He frequently enlivens the mind of his reader by sportive descriptions, and by representing in elevated measures, ludicrous objects and circumstances, a species of the mock heroic, so admired in Phillip's Splendid Shilling. The historical account he has given of chairs, in the first book of the Task, is a striking specimen of his powers of versification, and of his talent for humour in this latter style. The attention is however the most detained by those passages, in which the charms of rural life, and the endearments of domestic retirement are described. The Task abounds with incidents, introduced as episodes, and interposing an agreeable relief to the grave and serious part of the poetry. His

^{Cowper, Cox.} Crazy Kate is a description of the calamity of a disor-
dered reason, admirably exact and affecting.

"She begs an idle pin of all the meets."

What poet would have introduced so minute a circum-
stance into his representation! and yet that minuteness
constitutes its happy effect.

Of his talent for painting there cannot be a better
specimen than his sketch of the melancholy man, proba-
bly sketched from what too faithful remembrance
suggested of himself:

Look where he comes—In this embower'd alcove
Stand close concealed, and see a statue move;
Lips busy, and eyes fixt, foot falling slow,
Arms hanging idly down, hands clasp'd below,
Interpret to the marking eye, distress,
Such as its symptoms only can express.
That tongue is silent now;—that silent tongue
Could argue once, could jest or join the song,
Could give advice, could censure or commend,
Or charm the sorrows of a drooping friend.
Renounc'd alike its office and its sport,
Its brisker and its graver strains fall short;
Both fall beneath a fever's secret sway,
And like a summer brook are past away.

Retirement.

His John Gilpin is universally known, and may be
considered as a sportive piece of humour, which would
have done credit to many writers, but can hardly be
said to have added to Mr Cowper's reputation. His
next work was a translation of the Iliad and Odyssey
into Miltonic blank verse. It is an unjust piece of cri-
ticism to compare the version of Mr Pope to that of
Mr Cowper. The merits of each are distinct and ap-
propriate. Mr Cowper has exhibited Homer as he would
have sung had he been born in England. Mr Cowper
has endeavoured to portray him, as he wrote in
Greece, adhering frequently to the peculiarities of his
original's idiom, and desiring to preserve his strength
and energy, together with his harmony and smooth-
ness. Mr Cowper died of a severe and lingering ill-
ness, at East Dereham, in Norfolk, April 25. 1800.